Unclaimed (Turner, #2)

His reason knew it. But the rest of him was discontent with that decision.

Mark turned off the dusty track onto a lane. It headed straight down the hill, through a path lined by birch trees. The way was shaded; it wended down until it ran parallel to the briskly moving water of a mill-leat. Cool air rose around him, the temperature welcome against his skin. The walk, if nothing else, helped to bleed the edge from his sexual frustration. Deliberately, he kept walking past his mother’s house. He needed to regain his equanimity, to find the smooth imperturbable silk that normally surrounded him. Nothing like physical exertion to work his wants out of his system.

Glass bricks. He imagined them, cool against his skin. Distancing. Anything seen through glass must be far away, unable to touch him. If he laid them just right, he would be able to block off this smoldering powder keg of desire. He would be in control once again. He’d no longer sense the echoes of his mother but would again be a man whose emotions were all that was proper and gentlemanly.

He concentrated only on the distorting wave of the glass. It would mute out color, heat, shape—everything, really, except that which was sober and seemly. In his mental exercise, he built those glass walls high, higher, stretching until his mental tower of bricks rivaled that of Babel. It didn’t help that at every step along the way, he was confronted by reminders. The shadow of oak on water recalled the dark gleam of her hair. An errant beam of light, cutting through the gloom, brought to mind the sun-warm lips he’d touched. He waited until his breathing evened out. Until his wants fitted inside his skin once again.

It was only then that he let himself observe his surroundings. He’d traveled miles upstream from his mother’s house. In the distance, he could see the blackened bricks of a factory—one that no doubt had been burned back in the troubled times. Times his own family had precipitated. If he’d needed another reason to avoid the dangers that awaited him if he gave in to his animal needs, those dark stones stood as a whispering reminder. This wasn’t about him or his selfish, burning want for a woman.

Mark wasn’t his father. He wasn’t his mother. But…he might duplicate their mistakes, if he let himself slip.

Even with an hour between him and that kiss, even with his every thought bent toward expunging the sense of heat, he could still feel the pressure of her lips against his. No. There was nothing for it. He was going to have to stop indulging himself. He was going to have to stop pretending that his want for her was anything other than animal desire.

He was going to have to stop seeing her.

So why did that decision feel so wrong?

That twinge of regret he felt, that soul-deep gasp that filled him…

That was only further proof that she was the last woman on earth he needed to be thinking about.

With that decision firmly in hand, he turned and headed for home. The walk back took longer, now that he was no longer trying to outrace his own desires. If anything, he was almost reluctant to turn to his house again. It was cold and empty, filled with the ghosts of his childhood: precisely not the calm comfort he needed to keep his life in regular order.

When he was a child, there had been scant opportunity for quiet and comfort. But still, there had been times when his mind cleared, when the everyday bustle had been taken away. In times like this, with his fears cascading about him with no escape, he found an almost meditative calm in reciting words he’d long memorized.

Lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shall make me to understand wisdom secretly.

The words were familiar, restful. A muttered incantation, offered to his own fitful spirit.

Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness. Renew a right spirit within me.

That was what he wanted more than anything—to be refreshed, to not fear his own thoughts. But peace didn’t come. Nothing eased the turmoil he felt. No quiet. No calm. His thoughts made a whirlpool around him.

He made his way along the embankment of the mill-leat, the water running fiercely beside him, until he saw the familiar shape of home. It was just as he remembered it: gray and chilly in the late afternoon, fading into the brackish fenlike underbrush around it. Tonight, it would be dank and lonely. Mark sighed, wishing for the first time that one of his brothers had come with him.

When he was within a few yards of the entrance, movement off to the side distracted him.

He turned.

There was a moment of staggering stillness, as if the maelstrom of his discontent had simply frozen in place. As if every argument he’d conducted with himself had fallen in on itself. As if she had come here in answer to his desperation.

She brought him no calm. No quiet. If he hated excess, he should despise the sight of her.

He didn’t.

Jessica, his body whispered.